This company last week previewed the product in a conference call, conducted by Errol Schoenfish, director of product marketing. Microsoft describes the software this way, "Project Madeira offers an embedded experience within Office 365 so you can create customers, vendors, quotes, and invoices without leaving Outlook."

Madeira is a multi-tenant SaaS-based product running on the company's Azure platform. Microsoft says Madeira will be a global product and is hiring development staff in Fargo, N.D., and Denmark.